Part 4 (2/2)
Rhoda Polly was the learned one; she had been to college at Selborne, and still retained in speech and manner something Oxonian and aloof. But really she was gentle and humble-minded, eager with sympathy, and only shy because afraid of proffering it where it was not wanted. Rhoda Polly was a creamy blonde with abundant rippling hair, clearly cut small features, and the most sensitive of mouths. Yet she was full of the most unselfish courage, ready for long smiling endurances, and with that unusual feminine silence which enables a woman to keep her griefs to herself and even to deceive others into thinking she has none.
Did anyone want anything, Rhoda Polly would find it. Had two tickets only been sent for the theatre, Rhoda Polly would not mind staying at home. Rhoda Polly never minded anything. She did not cry half the afternoon like Hannah over a spoilt dress, nor fall into any of Liz's miniature rages. She was Rhoda Polly, and everybody depended upon her.
The girls confided in her largely, and never expected her to have any secrets of her own for truck, barter, or exchange.
Hannah had been delicate always--or at least had been so considered by her mother.
Her character had been formed between her mother's favour and her elder sister's habit of giving way rather than face an argument. She was dark and slender, placidly sure of being always right, and of looking best in a large picture hat with a raven plume.
Hannah had been sent to school near Lausanne, which was kept by the daughter of the famous Froebel, a.s.sisted by a relative of the still more famous Pestalozzi. An English lady was in residence at the Pestalozzi-Froebel Inst.i.tute, to teach the pupils the aristocratic manners, so rare and necessary an accomplishment in a country where the President of the Republic returns from his high office to put on his grocer's ap.r.o.n, and goes on weighing out pounds of tea at the counter of the old shop which had been his father's before him.
Liz was all dimples and easy manners, the plaything of the house. She knew she could do no wrong, so long as she went on opening wide her eyes of myosotis blue, now purring and now scratching like a kitten; she would often dart away for no reason whatever, only to come back a minute after, having apparently forgotten the cause of her brusque disappearance. She was accordingly a good deal spoilt, not only by the young engineers who frequented the Chateau Schneider, but by her parents and sisters as well.
One of the former, asked the reason of a decided preference for Liz, declared that it was because she could never be mistaken for a French convent-bred girl. It was pointed out to him that the same might be said for the other two, but he stuck to his point. Rhoda Polly with her Oxford manner of condescending to undergraduates, and Hannah with the Pestalozzi Inst.i.tute refinements, might speak and look as if they had a duenna hidden in the background, but Liz--never! She was more likely to box somebody's ears.
CHAPTER VI
AN OLD MAN MASTERFUL
Deventer and I came upon Rhoda Polly while we were getting our breath after the rush upstairs. We were old friends, and Rhoda Polly did not even put aside her rifle to greet us.
”Come from school without leave--run away--good!” she exclaimed. ”Have you made it all right with father?”
”Not yet--that is--the fact is---we thought you might as well come along with us, Rhoda Polly.”
”You think there will be a storm, Hugh?”
”Sure of it, but at least you can tell the Pater that Cawdor here is no prodigal. He comes with his father's blessing and a whole pile of paper money.”
”Father is among his entrenchments on the roof,” said the girl; ”better wait till he comes down. He is never quite himself when he is up there and the wind is blowing. Now tell me what made you run away?”
”We are going to enlist among Garibaldi's volunteers, and fight for France--at least that's what Cawdor says. But I mean to stay here till all is safe for mother and you.”
At this moment Rhoda Polly nudged us. There was a sound of heavy decided footsteps grating on the steel ladder which led to the roof, then a thump and the noise of feet stamping on the floor above us.
”He has been lying behind the chimney till he is stiff,” whispered Rhoda Polly. ”Give him time to limber himself.”
For a minute all was quiet along the Potomac, and then a mighty voice was heard demanding ”those two young rascals.”
Deventer's smile was somewhat forced, and it might only have been the moonlight, but he certainly looked both sick and white about the gills.
I was not greatly affected, but then I had not had his discipline. My case and credit were clear. All the same, it was obvious that the Dennis Deventer who captained his forces against the insurgents within the walls of Chateau Schneider, and the seeker after knowledge who prowled about my father's library or listened modestly to his interminable expositions, were very different persons.
”Better not keep him waiting,” said Rhoda Polly. ”I will take you. He has a room for himself fitted up on the third floor.”
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